


Special

by Calais_Reno



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, Down Syndrome, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 22:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18291734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: For a beautiful child whom I have the honour to know.





	Special

He looks at his daughter, seeing himself and Mary. Her name is Rosie. Like a flower, so beautiful. He also sees what they didn’t expect. She will not be brilliant, as he’d hoped. She won’t go to uni and become a doctor or a scientist or a lawyer. She won’t marry and give them grandchildren. She is beautiful, even her twenty-first chromosome. It’s mild, the neonatal experts tell them, no heart problems, her eyes look fairly normal, and other problems remain to be seen. Maybe she’ll have a happy life.

He must make sure she is happy.

He remembers sending Sherlock a picture of himself holding her, taken by one of the nurses. He is smiling, she is asleep. Sherlock sends a congratulatory text, but babies aren’t really his area, so he doesn’t notice the small signs that tell who this baby is, what her life will be.

He cries while Mary and the baby are sleeping. He is afraid that her life will be full of doctor appointments, intelligence tests, sympathetic observers, and lowered expectations. That she will understand the disappointment, the false sympathy. Already, it has begun. _There are things they can do for her. Better treatments, special education._

He blames himself. He is over forty, and Mary thirty-nine. The odds were against them. It isn’t as if they’d planned to become pregnant, but when they found out (when Sherlock told them), neither of them could imagine giving her up. She is their baby girl.

But they never expected this. The birth was easy, the baby perfect. Almost. A blood test, and they know the truth.

The first weeks, she is good, a baby who doesn’t fuss, who sleeps through the night, who smiles constantly. They remind themselves: She will be happy. They will make sure of it.

And then, Mary is gone. He is left with a special needs baby, a little girl who needs him, who needs more than him. As terrible as Mary’s death was, there is a sense of relief. Now he can devote himself to his daughter, be the parent she needs, instead of struggling to hold together a shaky marriage. He would die for his daughter. He can easily give up pieces of his life for her.

The months go by, the doctor’s appointments are made, evaluations done, treatments recommended, studies read. _Is she happy?_ She is six months old now. She fusses, refuses, cries, and sometimes smiles at him in a way that makes his knees weak. And he is exhausted.

Sherlock notices. “You should move home,” he says.

 _Home_. What is home? A mother who was an assassin, now dead? A father who has no idea how to do this? A prognosis that leaves him with little hope?

He says this to Sherlock.

“Special needs,” he says. “I was special. Doctors said I would never talk, never have a normal life.”

John shakes his head, holds back his tears. “I don’t know how to do this.”

Sherlock is smiling at the baby he has taken from John and now holds in his arms. She opens her mouth, a wide, toothless smile accompanied by a crow of happiness. “Hello, Watson,” he says. “Welcome to Baker Street.”

The tears flow. “She’s going to need a lot,” John says. “I can’t ask that of you.”

“You don’t have to ask,” Sherlock says. “Parenting is very important for a child like Rosie. We will be the best parents possible.”

“Really?” says John. He’s thinking, _we?_ “Are you willing to do this?”

Sherlock, still holding Rosie, pulls John close. “I would do anything for you. She’s your daughter. How can I not love her?”

“How can I not love you?” John replies, tears still flowing.


End file.
